Flamenco Dancer Clothespin Doll

Welcome to week 3, the craft portion, of our Spain series at Mommy Maleta. The first week in our series we explored Spain by looking at a map, flag, and country facts. The second week we met 9 year old Gabriel who told us about his life in Spain in an interview. This third week, for our craft, we are going to learn how to make a flamenco dancer clothespin doll.

Flamenco is a style of folk music and dance that comes from the southern region of Spain called Andalusia. Flamenco dancers and musicians include 6 elements in their performance. I’ll list them for you below.

Six Flamenco Performance Elements

1. Cante | Singing

2. Toque | Guitar Playing

3. Baile | Dance

4. Jaleo | Vocalizations & Rhythmic Sounds

5. Palmas | Hand Clapping

6. Pitos | Finger Snapping

I found a couple of video clips to show you what flamenco dancing looks like, and what flamenco music sounds like. My girls and I had fun making our clothespin dolls while we listened to the music. The first video shows children dancing.

The second video shows the National Spanish Ballet.

Now that you’ve experienced some of the sights an sounds of Spanish culture, let’s get going on the craft which was inspired by the Spanish Clothespin Doll over at Making Friends.

Materials

• Flat clothespins (see link below)
• matchsticks (see link below)
• red embroidery floss
• black embroidery floss
• 1  x 5 inch strip of black tulle
• scrap of red tissue paper
• 1 fine point black Sharpie marker
• 1 extra fine point black Sharpie marker
• scissors
• glue gun or tacky glue

Flat Clothespins

Wooden Craft Matchsticks

Instructions

• Use the black marker to color in little shoes on the “feet” of the clothespin doll.
• Fold the strip of black tulle in half. Begin gluing the skirt on the doll bunching it up as you move the material around the clothespin to make the skirt fuller.
• Begin wrapping the red embroidery floss around the doll to begin making the dress. You will overlap and cover some of the skirt and then continue wrapping until you get to armpits of the doll. Glue the thread to secure it.
• Break 2 matchsticks so that each one measures about inch long. Use glue to attach the matchsticks to the clothespin body just above the red thread to make the arms of your doll. I used plain wooden craft matchsticks like the ones in the link below.
• Begin wrapping the red embroidery floss around the doll again to finish making the dress. Cover up the very top of the arms with the thread to hide the spot where the arms attach to the clothespin body.
• Continue wrapping the clothespin with the red thread you get to a spot where you the neck to begin.
• Secure the thread with a dab of glue.
• Now it’s time to add the hair. Wind the black embroidery floss around two fingers to create a loop. Cut the loop and attach the thread to the top of the doll to make hair. I also cut some additional threads to fill in spots that needed more strands of hair.
• Crumple up a tiny square of red tissue paper so it looks like a little rose. Glue the rose onto the doll’s hair.
• Draw a face on the doll with the extra fine point sharpie marker.
• Once the glue is dry, crank up the flamenco music and and let your doll show off her dance moves. : )

I hope you enjoyed learning about Spanish culture today by reading this post, watching the videos, and making your very own flamenco dancer clothespin doll. You can learn more about Spain by reading the first 2 posts in this series.

Week 1: Explore Spain
Week 2: Meet Gabriel in Spain

Make sure to subscribe to Mommy Maleta to get the 4th post in this series delivered directly to your inbox. You can also check out my Spain | Country and Spain | Recipe boards to gather more craft ideas and taste authentic Spanish recipes.

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This post was linked up over at Anderson & Grant